Wounded
by Harmony4life
Summary: Did you remember the time when she refused to leave a city that holds dark secrets of the supernaturals, despite the lethal danger it poses? Well, perhaps because at the city resides the very one person she is helplessly drawn to.


Disclaimer: God knows I don't own "The Originals." Nor do I wish to.

She thought she knew cold, but nothing like this frozen knife sliced through her heart when she watched him stare unseeingly at the bed drape, a quietly raging burgundy of blood, long deprived of oxygen and nutrients.

"Are you hurt?"

Her voice brought him out of his reverie. He winced before turning to her, brows drawing together in concentration, as if it hit him for the first time that he wasn't alone. She kept her worried gaze, a touch of trepidation, on him, willing him to remember, to recognize her presence. He blinked, and shook his head lightly. She felt like a phantom inside this glacier of his private bed chamber, siphoning heat off her human body.

Gingerly touching the red angry scar on his chest, he hissed. "Side-effects of eternal torment." He looked away before the veins grew underneath his lids. "No, not hurt. More like burnt."

"Emotionally, I meant. Are you wounded?"

She let the silence drawl for a good half-minute before she moved to sit on the the bed, interjecting his line of sight, and she felt it sink under her weight. He didn't move. She reached out to brush her fingers lightly against his curls, nudging him to look at her.

"Hey, I know you are angry, and you can focus on it like you always do. But anger is a secondary emotion; it is there because your subconscious is trying to use it to mask something else. Something deeper."

"Enough. I'm in no moods for your little chat." He cut her off, his voice lacking real frustration. Just the weariness of thousand years of hunting & chasing punctuated with running & hiding. And it was so transparent that she could decipher even without accidentally intruding his mind, or typing up his memoirs.

No, she knew, just by looking into the bottomless void of his eyes, where screamed desperation to be heard, so she couldn't bring herself to fear the bloodthirsty predator that could end her swiftly with a snap of her neck. Or perhaps, she did not care. She suffered such a great loss, when her twin died, and is now fast losing her uncle, so she hasn't felt truly alive for a while, except when she... lays eyes on him. Him whose name alone makes people crumple in terror. Him whose eyes twinkle when she launches into one of her classic psyche talk. Him whose soul seems to be soundlessly calling her name whenever he sees her, for sympathy and understanding, for compassion and simple human care. Him whose touch seared at her skin, transmitting the wounds onto her, and her heart could only twist helplessly at how she yearned to give him just what he needs but refuses to take because his tortuous traumatic past has been whispering lies for thousands of years that he didn't deserve it. Him, warped as it sounds, whose damaged existence gives her a sense of purpose amid her own emotional turmoils, and her listlessness at life itself...All of sentiments she was trying to convey by light strokes of his hair, of which he made no protest.

After another half-minute, she continued softly. "It's not therapy. I'm just lending you an ear. I felt so betrayed when Sean had that 'psychotic break' out of the blue, you know. I felt betrayed because I thought I knew my twin brother. I still do, despite knowing the truth. Same with uncle Kieran. They could have shared with me their burdens." She inched closer, her thigh touching his limp arm. "So I understand you felt betrayed by your little sister and Marcel, two people you care most about. I just want you to know, it's safe to get it off your chest, so please talk to me."

He all but grunted. She reluctantly let her fingers fall off his hair, and, almost on a whim, perch haphazardly on his glaring red scar, and she gasped at the scalding heat.

"Wait here." She ordered gently, as if he had the strength to bolt.

"I'll be right back." She leaned forward to press a soft kiss on his temple, and retreated quickly, somewhat scared to see his reaction.

She found him in same the position, immobile but for the ragged breaths, and the even rise and fall of his chest. Carefully approaching him, she placed the ice bag on his sternum, her palm keeping pressure against the icy fabric. She started padding along the length of his scar, unaware of the shivers that went through her body. Her fingers went numb, but she patiently did it again, and again until the bag went jelly. She tested the temperature with the back of her hand, and she hummed satisfyingly. "A little bit better now."

"Let me go put this ice bag back in the freezer till we need it again." She was about to get up, when his hand reached up to grasp her wrist.

"Stay." He was hoarse, breathing heavily, just a little word apparently costing him the last of strengths.

She slowly sat back down, let him guide her hand onto his scar, and cover hers with his, cold and clammy. She felt his heart thumping painfully, reassuringly underneath her palm, still cold from the ice bag which was then left forgotten on the edge of the nightstand, the blue liquid thinner by the second.

She tugged her shoes off her feet, brought her knees to her chest, sitting quietly next to his haggard form, her hand never moving away from his chest, kept secure under his. She rested her head on her knees, golden locks spilling around her shoulders. Her emerald eyes glistened in the dark, fastened to his face, watching for any signs of discomfort. She felt her thumb slowly caress the top of his scar, smoothing the obtrusive skin, heedless of the invisible fire that wormed its way into the nerve endings, carried all the way to her heart.

"I am not going anywhere." She heard her whisper, foreign to her own mind for the startling truth it bears.


End file.
